


blue in the broad light of day

by singmyheart



Series: he makes my heart a cinemascope screen [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF
Genre: F/M, Jealousy, Oral Sex, complicated adult emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 12:49:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12817881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singmyheart/pseuds/singmyheart
Summary: He can only imagine what he looks like right now, so tense that his back aches a little, that he’s practically grinding his teeth to dust. Not to mention the churning in his gut, which is rapidly migrating upward into what might be a heartburn situation. He’s not sure. Acid reflux, maybe. An ulcer. A tumor? Probably not a tumor.





	blue in the broad light of day

**Author's Note:**

> this is like... not strictly canon? think of it as a deleted scene, I guess.

 

 

 

Lin kind of hates the holidays. He can admit that.

Not even Christmas itself, he’s hardly Scrooge — it's just the trappings of the season. The forced goodwill, the family headache, the hovering sense of reproach and obligation December brings with it. It's wall-to-wall stress and he's usually glad if he can make it through New Year’s more or less intact.

And — well. He’s not particularly religious, either (the closest he gets these days is some good old-fashioned lapsed-Catholic guilt, this sort of shapeless sneaking fog rolling in around Christmas and Easter) but if he were, he’d _probably_ cop to having some things to atone for, this year. So maybe it’s a good thing he hadn’t managed to conjure an excuse to get himself out of helping with the school’s winter carnival this time around. As acts of contrition go, giving up a Saturday afternoon to sell apple cider to teenagers has got to count for something.

It’s a perfect day for it, too, bright, frigid cold but not snowing. Small miracles. Decent turnout; the place is swarming with all manner of staff and students current and former, parents, families. Someone’s organized a canned goods drive and a raffle, there’s a Christmas tree, Lac’s senior vocal kids are supposed to sing later. There's a lot of glitter, for some reason. It’s all very festive, an almost sickeningly cheerful scene. Wholesome. Belongs on a greeting card.

Pippa’s here and she’s got her back half-turned to him, sitting with a group of her friends more or less directly in front of his little booth. They've parked themselves at one of the picnic tables scattered across the courtyard, seven or eight of them, getting a little rowdy, a little loud, but not causing a scene, or anything.

He’d known, of course he had, that she might show up, but he hadn’t actually expected she _would_. Hadn’t prepared in any way for her to roll up with Jasmine, Oak, a handful of others from her graduating class he recognizes. She’d caught his eye earlier and waved, and he’s been kind of nauseous ever since. At least he’s busy. He's sufficiently preoccupied, for a while, that he can’t dwell on it — and no sooner has he silently thanked a cruel and fickle and nonspecific god for that one than she’s coming over. Her face betrays a flicker of worry but then it’s gone and by the time she’s reached his table there’s nothing but a blandly polite smile there, her default customer-service expression. “Hey.”

“Hi,” he says, and it sounds normal, so there’s that. Working to keep his own expression neutral (and he’d thought she had a shitty poker face). “What’s your poison?”

“Uh, can I have…” She trails off to count briefly on her fingers; the way her nose scrunches up a tiny bit as she’s thinking is so endearing as to be sharply painful. “Six ciders and a hot chocolate, please.” Their hands brush as he takes her money, a handful of change he’d half-heard her collecting from the others at the table. She’s got on a pair of gloves he supposes is meant to be stylish but impractical, with the fingers cut off.

“Weird to be on this side of things,” he observes, a safe enough remark.

She grins at him. “Weird for you. I could get used to it.” Nothing further for a minute or two while he fills the paper cups and tries to wrestle lids onto them and then she says, quietly, “I wasn’t gonna come. To this, I mean.” Leans forward a little, hair spilling over her shoulder, and she tucks it back impatiently. Crease between her brows.

Shit. “Let’s not do this now,” he mutters, mouth barely moving. Determinedly not looking her in the eye.

“Jas and Tony kind of sprang it on me, they really wanted to come — and he’s my ride, so I —”

“Seriously, let’s just —”

“ — I can’t really just _leave_ —”

“Can we please do this later. I’m working.” He can only imagine what he looks like right now, so tense that his back aches a little, that he’s practically grinding his teeth to dust. Not to mention the churning in his gut, which is rapidly migrating upward into what _might_ be a heartburn situation. He’s not sure. Acid reflux, maybe. An ulcer. A tumor? Probably not a tumor.

“Fine,” she says, terse, almost inaudible. Picks at a thread on the edge of her sleeve.

He tries to telegraph a silent _thank you_ and isn’t at all sure he succeeds. A moment’s shuffling while she tries to fit seven cups into a flimsy cardboard tray made for four, balanced precariously between both hands and her chin. “You want another? Got it?” he asks, half-reaches toward her like he can steady it.

She makes a considering sort of noise and then relents, huffs a laugh. “Yeeeah, no.” Whistles, and her friends look up; the gangly blond one jogs over to them in the way all teenage boys have, like his limbs aren’t so much flesh and blood as bendy straws. “Thank you,” she says gratefully, as he gathers up the extra cups, and gestures between them. “You guys know each other, right? Rafa?”

They do, insofar as Rafa had been one of the handful of kids he gets every single semester who show up for the first week without pens and then ghost. “If you want to be generous about it,” Lin says, lightly. Rafa doesn’t correct him.

The afternoon continues apace. He's busy and not busy in fits and starts, and every time he lets his eyes drift over, he regrets it heartily. Pippa’s laughing now, shoving at Rafa’s shoulder in faux-outrage at some joke at her expense. Lands a couple of light smacks on his arm; he feigns hurt, all exaggerated. “Stop,” she complains, in a voice that cuts clear across the courtyard, somewhere between a laugh and a whine. “Fuck _all_ of you, you’re so _rude_ , I’m leaving —”

“Bitch, you’re walking,” Jasmine puts in, deadpan, and that sets them all off laughing; Pippa rolls her eyes to high heaven and Rafa catches both of her wrists lightly to stop her hitting him again. She tries unsuccessfully to shove him off, collapsing into giggles — and some slumbering shadowy animal in the back of Lin’s mind twitches in protest. Just a pinprick, a small but distinct streak of unsettlement. _Don't like this._ He’s starting to get concerned his jaw might actually just snap off and fall into the slush at his feet.

When they get up, they leave paper cups, napkins, other debris strewn across the picnic table; Pippa casts a tiny guilty glance back before she makes to follow Rafael, who’s hanging back for her, expectant. She catches Lin’s eye, too, fleeting — his first instinct is to drop his gaze, but he holds, for a second or two that feels longer than it is. They're far enough apart that he could be imagining the quirk of her brow, the barely-perceptible hitch of her shoulders, answering the question he's not asking.

There’s no reason he shouldn’t say something about the table, though he’s not relishing the prospect — and relief floods him as Karen appears from nowhere.

“Guys, come on. Really?” A couple of mumbled, sheepish apologies, and she watches them clear up the mess (he recognizes her expression as the particular combination of exasperation and amusement all teachers probably develop as a defense mechanism). “Who raised you.” She’s still shaking her head as she makes her way over to him, snow crunching beneath her leather boots, sidles up to the table all faux-coy. Stage whispers. “Hey, any chance you got rum back there somewhere? I’d settle for spiked eggnog, even.”

He can't bite back a grin. “I’m wearing a flask, but common courtesy dictates I don’t tell you where.”

“You’ve got some left, then. C’mon, man, hook a lady up. Hand it over.”  

“Oh, no, it’s gone. I’m absolutely wasted right now,” he assures her, and she laughs. Cocks her head at him.

“I’m a little surprised to see you here, I’m not gonna lie. Couldn’t come up with an excuse this time, or what?”

“You know, I was gonna go with ‘death of a triplet’, but I figured that might be a _bit_ far-fetched.”

“You can use it twice, though,” she points out.

“My thoughts exactly,” he agrees, and not for the first time he’s thinking, _this is so easy_. It would be, with Karen. Thinking she’s the kind of person he’s supposed to want, that if he had a type she’d be it. In another life, maybe. They’ve had a flirty work-friends kind of thing going on for years, right from the first time they'd met; if nothing ever comes of it he doesn’t think he’ll mind.

She hangs around for a while, shooting the shit, though she’s technically working, too. Not that he’s complaining.

Of goddamn course, though, once he gets five seconds to duck inside he runs into Pippa. Because this is just what his life is like, evidently. “Oh, hi,” she says, mildly enough, gestures down the hallway. “Is that bathroom — ?”

“Being renovated, apparently. The ones upstairs are open, there was supposed to be a sign, I think…” She mocks up a look of terror and he doesn’t blame her; for some reason the second-floor bathrooms in particular are always the stuff of nightmares. Might be haunted. “You know what, come with me,” he tells her impulsively; he’d been headed for the staff room anyway, has to charge his phone and hunt down a few rolls of coin besides. It’s totally reasonable.

She comes out of the staff bathroom minutes later wiping damp hands on her jeans, and thanks him, and there’s a moment’s unbearable, awkward silence. She looks a little uncomfortable, maybe a quarter as stressed as he's been all day, which he figures is fair; never mind that this’ll look perfectly innocent on the off chance they’re interrupted (is, actually, perfectly innocent).

“That wasn’t — you were kind of rude to Rafa earlier, I thought.”

“I didn’t mean to be,” he says, too quickly. It’s true but doesn’t sound like it. Her skeptical look gets his back up in an instant, prickling unrest, irritation.

“Whatever,” she mutters, “sounded like you meant it to me.”

“Well, I’ll apologize, then.”

“I think he’d appreciate that, yeah,” she retorts, a little cool to counter his obvious bristling.  

Another moment. Loaded quiet. And he _tries_ , to keep them down, but the fist that’s been steadily tightening in his chest all day squeezes the words out of him despite the effort: “That fucking — him? Really?” _Kid,_ he’d been about to say _kid._

“What? He’s nice.” A touch defensive.

“He’s stoned out of his tree,” Lin points out.

“So?” She cocks a hip, looks him deliberately up and down, crosses her arms — which, his brain supplies unhelpfully, is a flawless display of the kind of attitude he gets from a hundred other girls on a daily basis. The kind he’s never seen on her except in brief flashes (not that you’d guess that now, she’s so comfortable in it). “You jealous, or something?”

“Say that a little louder, would you, please?” She mirrors his nervous glance toward the door. But there’s nothing, no one, of course there isn’t. “Jealous — of _what_?” He snorts, but has to reach too far for incredulity, practically sputtering.

“Of Rafa. Yeah.”

“What’s there to be jealous of? Watching him paw at you? Which is real cute, by the way, that’s just — fuckin’ aces —”

“I thought so,” she says, nodding, and looking pretty satisfied with herself. Alright, bluff called, then. Goddamnit.

“Look,” he goes on, a little more quietly. Perversely, the urge to touch her has come on hard and abruptly and he shoves his hands in his pockets to temper it, forcing himself to look at her instead of watching the door. “I know this isn’t ideal, okay, I’m not thrilled about it myself —”

“Yeah, I can see that —”

“I know, but —”

“I _tried_ to say so earlier and you just —”

“I know — please, please be quiet — I _know,_ and I am _working,_ like I said, I —” He stops, sighs. Takes a step closer to her, close as he dares, tries again. “It’s not like I twisted your arm, baby.” _Fuck_ his idiot mouth for that one. “You knew what to expect, alright, you knew I’d be here, it’s not like —”

Scathing, this time: “Oh, _whatever,_ Lin —”

“I’m begging you, will you lower your voice, _please._ Goddamn, just — you’ve made your point, Pippa,” he bursts out finally, more forceful than he might have intended, albeit barely above a strangled whisper. “You’re upset, I get it. Message very much received. Loud and clear.”

A beat — and he anticipates her folding, can see her trying to arrange her thoughts, gaze fixed somewhere on the wall over his shoulder. But when she looks at him again (sharp angles like this, cast in the weak late-afternoon sun trying to breach the windows), her jaw’s set, doesn’t soften an inch. Even in the half-light he can see the flush high on her cheeks that can't be blamed entirely on the cold. They're standing too close. “It _sucks,_ okay,” she whispers fiercely, “this whole — ugh. Whatever. Rafa’s sweet to me and I guess I just thought, you know, it might be nice to hang out with him for like, five entire minutes and not have to lie about it later, but apparently —”

That's a knife in the ribs. Makes him snide. “If you’re trying to wind me up just do a little better than fucking — Shaggy Rogers next time, that’s all I’m —”

But she lets out a choked sort of noise, pure frustration, and goes on, cutting him off: “So. Sorry if that's not the most _mature_ response, or whatever — _oh_ my god, don’t —” He’d said her name, poised to speak without quite knowing what he’s trying to say. Doesn’t matter. “But I don’t really want to get into this right now, my friends are waiting for me, so! I’m gonna go. I’ll see you later, Mr. _Miranda._ " Practically spits the last two words, venomous, tosses them down at his feet. Might as well have slapped him. And she turns on her heel and stalks off, leaves him standing there.

 

*

 

What starts as just wondering if she’d left with the kid, if the group of them had piled into Anthony’s car as afternoon rolled into evening, turns into picturing it, against his better judgment. A sudden, lurid vision: how far she might be willing to take this. How Rafa would be in bed with her. Clumsy, too rough, altogether unpracticed. Wouldn't care if she got off, that's for sure (Lin has a theory, can clock those guys by looking). Might not be able to tell, even; she could fake it and he wouldn't know the difference. Dirty blond head between her thighs and her faraway eyes, lip bitten in frustration, the sounds she'd toss out a pale imitation of the genuine thing. Worse still — with a sick kind of fascination, he thinks about her returning the favor, and his stomach twists. On her knees with a careless hand sunk into her hair, swallowing in the absence of even a courtesy warning.

 _She'd still be better off,_ whispers the traitor voice in the back of his mind, and the prowling animal thing gets its hackles up, displeased.

Anyway. Doesn’t matter. Stupid. They’d made plans earlier in the week, and now… well, he doesn't really know how they’d left things. He’d waffled over texting her last night, after a drink or two, but refrained, reasoning that a slightly tipsy text is functionally no better than a drunk dial. He doesn’t need to show his hand any more than he already has.

They'd had plans, and he hasn't spoken to her, so it's hardly out of line to text her now, even hating how it makes him feel like he's caving. Sulking. Probably hasn't felt like this since he was her age.

_Do you want me to come pick you up_

It's not that she's forgotten: there are a dozen recent texts right there, making plans (her last one to him says _night babe_ , and the heart-eyes cat emoji). He's practically chewed off his thumbnail by the time her reply comes.

_no thanks, i’m almost there actually_

_buses are running late_

She kisses his cheek and kicks off her boots in the entryway, like always. What’s unusual is that she’s a little withdrawn, not as chatty as she normally is, telling him about her day and asking about his (or maybe she’s not and he's just overthinking it). She apologizes, sometimes, for rambling, though he hardly thinks she talks as much as she seems to think she does. He can’t say for sure, but he gets the impression she’s different around him than other people; that she allows him things, parts of herself, that she offers anyone else rarely, if ever. It’s not completely unflattering, truth be told.

They end up in bed all the same, just entangled and making out for a while. This, this is good, easy, though it takes him a bit to pin down what doesn't quite feel right: she's still keeping him at arm’s length, or trying to. Making him work for it. Well, he's never backed down from a challenge. Turns over and takes her with him, pulls her into his lap and down into another lingering kiss, and she goes willingly. Her hair’s still in its long tail, falling over her shoulder, and he tugs on the end of it, just to get her attention; she smiles, a little. “Still with me?”

“I'm right here,” she says, kind of amused, like that's a weird question.

Despite her reticence she warms up, sooner or later. Rolls her hips against his, small steady movement, once and then again, and again, and. They're both in jeans and he's sure she could get off like this, half-clothed, at the right angle — almost wants to try now, but files it away for another time; he's got other plans. When he touches her, slips a hand into flimsy satin panties to get at her clit, she rewards him with this tiny moan, satisfied. _Good_ , he thinks.

And, shit, how easy would it be just to fuck her — just layers of fabric and a few scant inches separating them now. Nothing for her just to shift and take him in; he knows exactly how her breath would catch. Nothing between them and all that soft slick warmth around his cock. He can almost circle her waist with both hands, she’s so tiny.

Still, to have her kisses get a little sloppy, to have the bitten-off sounds escaping her throat even though she's trying to rein them in while she fucks herself on his fingers, isn't exactly anything to complain about. God, she's always so hot inside and _wet_ and so tight, quivering. Rocks down at the same time he presses up, searching, and — “Oh,” she says, soft, draws it out some. Yeah, there it is.

“You're so sweet,” he tells her, the usual kind of nonsense tumbling out of his mouth unchecked. “So fucking sweet, you know, you feel so good, pretty girl —”

“Fuck,” she breathes when he crooks his fingers just a little and grabs his wrist to hold him where she wants him. She's close, already; chest flushed all pink and pretty to match her cunt, eyes closed, mouth slack. He can't get over that, how responsive she is.

“Yeah, that's good? Tell me —”

“Shut up,” she mutters, and even breathless as it is he's still so surprised he almost stops. “Just shut up, just stop talking —”

What the fuck. He reaches for amusement to cover the disbelief, how suddenly and badly she's thrown him. “Uh, try that again?” She means it, though, doesn’t relinquish his wrist and kind of sighs his name, almost exasperated. It’s a total, complete one-eighty and it sets the ghost of yesterday’s unease roiling in his gut; he’s had all the nasty surprises a man can be reasonably expected to take in a twenty-four hour period, surely. But he concedes, after a long moment. “Alright, alright, uncle.” She digs her nails in his wrist just to bite and lets go only to fist both hands in his shirt and drag him into a bruising mess of a kiss, knocking teeth.

He can clock it easily, when she’s going to come; the way she tucks her face into his neck is one telltale sign, smother the sounds she’s still embarrassed about making. He makes the decision in a split second, to regain familiar ground the only way he knows how. Brushes her hair back to talk low in her ear and weaves his fingers through the soft strands, keep a little tension right there at the roots like she likes. “Ask me for it,” he tells her, “beg pretty —”

And of all things she laughs, sharp, nothing shy about it. “Yeah, no, I’m not doing that — come _on —_ ”

Okay, what the _fuck._ But she fixes her teeth in his lip, not even a kiss, and makes this tiny noise, this positively sinful almost-whine, a breathless wisp of a sound and that's it, that's all it takes. He fucking folds like a cheap suit, two fingers in her soaking perfect cunt and his thumb on her clit and this time it’s less that she’s falling apart than that she’s getting exactly what she wants. What she deserves, he thinks, hazy and half-wild himself with the want of it. This, to feel this good, to have someone who knows what he’s doing, who'll do her right, treat her well. She comes hard even by her own standard and gasping, maybe twice in succession, it’s difficult to tell. Warm wet rush over his wrist and he'd walk over broken glass barefoot to fuck her, right at this moment. Hot coals, or a bed of nails, or something. She melts a little against him, curls into his chest and lets him hold her while she gets her breath back.

Well.

For a minute there he thinks that’s it, that she considers her point made, she’s gotten whatever this is out of her system, and it’s kind of nice, just quiet.

No such luck, though, as evidenced by the subsequent teasing; she wriggles down and unbuttons his jeans, noses at his cock through his boxers. Takes her sweet time about it. All these maddening fucking fleeting light touches of lips and fingertips and all the while she's unmoved by his sighs and curses, compliments. Leisurely, not exactly playful but definitely torturous.

Finally, though, she tires of it and swallows him down, easily. _God._  Fuck. After so long it’s enough to make his toes curl a little, all the velvet-soft heat of her mouth and the barely-there scratch of her fingernails. She’s gotten good at this, like unfairly so, and he says as much.

She pulls off to breathe and wipes delicately at her lip and says, sugar-sweet, “Well, practice makes perfect.”

Oh, that’s very cute. Real clever. He’s not taking the bait, though, he refuses — and he’s achingly close anyway so what does it matter, really. “Come here,” he murmurs, pushes the remark out of his mind and instead pulls her back up to kiss her deep and filthy, “come here, get up here, just touch me —” There it is, perfect spit-slick hand on his cock, strokes —

“He tried to kiss me last night,” she half-whispers in his ear, low, “Rafa did, he —”

“What the fuck, what,” he chokes out but she hurtles on, merciless, doesn’t give him a chance to react, doesn’t stop. Blood in the water now.

“— tried but I just kept thinking about you, how mad you were yesterday —”

“I wasn’t —” He should stop this, he really should. But the protest sounds paper-thin underneath his blood rushing in his ears and he’s almost, _almost_ — right there, fuck — her teeth in his neck now, not gently, right in the spot under his ear that always takes him apart. Searing heat along his nerves. A little harder and a little harder and it’ll bruise and that insistent firm-slick-steady grip on his cock and his traitor fucking mouth is getting away from him again, cut loose. “Yeah — yes, yes, do it, go on —” Scrapes her teeth against his skin as she pulls back like she's trying to take a piece of it with her, keeps talking.

“Thinking about how I was coming here to see you and he had no idea, no idea that I couldn’t — fuck, Lin, you know I couldn’t sit down for, like, a day, last week?” _Christ,_ last week, his whole body flushes still hotter at the memory; his palm warm and smarting and her ass bright red. Near tears and squirming in his lap with her dress all twisted up but swearing she could take more, wanted _more, please, Lin, please_ — she’d absolutely gone to pieces and there’s no trace of that now, her breath warm on his neck and her voice all honey and poison. “Yeah, come on, Lin,” she’s practically purring, “give it up, Mr. Miranda, come on —”

Oh, no, _no,_ fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, nope, absolutely not, no, but — too late now, he’s done for. Clever girl. Lin tips over shuddering, inexorable; his hips stutter and he shoots off like six times, comes hard and messy over her hand, string of curses scraping its way out his throat.

_Well._

He floats back to earth piece by piece, shaky and raw. Aware that his shirt is damp, his heart fixing to beat out his chest. The nausea returns with haste and a vengeance: what the fuck _was_ that —

The brush of her fingertips again over his softening cock makes him jerk, twitch, way oversensitive. She giggles, sprawls sideways off of his lap and stretches out across the mattress, breathing nearly as hard as he is. Her gauzy lace bra all askew (it’s tiny, nothing to it; why even wear one at that point, he wonders faintly) and damp from his mouth, jeans still unbuttoned and tangled up. Looking unmistakably freshly fucked, all in all. Sex-scent heavy in the air. She wrestles out of the jeans impatiently but leaves her wool socks on, which is kind of funny, kind of cute (there’s that fleeting little stab in his chest again, the affectionate kind). They need to shower, they should talk, he should say something, or maybe kick her out (though she’d made some not-as-subtle-as-she-thinks noises about staying here while he’s at work tomorrow). Something. Anything but what he does, which is tip over to rest his chin on her hip, telling himself it's just the usual dozy post-coital contentment, wanting her skin. She touches his shoulder, looks a bit uncertain, suddenly. “You’re good?”

He turns his cheek to the soft inside of her thigh, kisses it almost on reflex; the rasp of his beard makes her shiver. “I’m always good, baby girl,” he assures her hoarsely, aiming for rakish, or in the vicinity of it. Doesn’t think he manages it but it makes her smile so what does he know. She hmms, watching him; he wets his lips, inhales. The scent of her arousal is thick here, heady and intimate, on her humid skin and the damp panties she’d not bothered to take off, the thatch of silky dark hair trimmed neat under them; it’s sweet and it’ll cling to him for hours, he knows. Has before. Grazes his teeth just carefully over her thigh and she rocks up half an inch to meet him; fuck, yeah, he’s right, she’s not done yet. Gently still, he tugs aside the sheer scrap of fabric to just catch lingering wetness on the pads of his fingertips, slow, slow, kisses where he’s touching, darts his tongue out to taste. She lets out a quiet, shuddering gasp at that, and threads her fingers into his hair.

 

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Ultimatum" by the Long Winters. 
> 
> J knows what she did. you know where I'm at, come yell at me.


End file.
